113 years, or thereabouts.
Seems to me the first cards to be trimmed were Old Judge cards, where folks wanted to remove the brand name in an attempt to minimize the likelihood that young collectors would turn to smoking cigarettes.
If that 'how long' doesn't suit, how about 102 years. That would be about when collectors of ballcards would trim down American Caramel cards just a bit, so they would be the same size as the white border tobacco cards.
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